In all the time I have vaped, on electronic cigarettes, it has always been a constant search for what works best for me. The key I found is to keep looking, as money allows, and move up to one that completely satisfies you. Electronic cigarette information is out on the web everywhere. All you have to do is be willing, and have the time to do your own research. I have spent time over the last couple years feeling great about my e-cig, and other times feeling like it is lacking in one way or another. The key to enjoy vaping for yourself, is not what works best for me, but what works best for you. Hopefully I can shed some light on my journey to help point you in the right direction so you too can find your perfect ecig vaping pleasure.

The first thing you will do is likely move up to, or start with some type of an ego kit. These are great starting places, as they do produce decent vapor, and the batteries will last a long time. If you get the stronger ones, you can have a battery that will last you all day. That is step one.. getting past the charge every couple of hours stage. ( That drove me nuts)

Then I found that the vivi nova held a lot more e liquid than say a C-4 or C-6 clearomizer, and that was cool, because I could go out all day and not need to carry a bottle of juice with me to refill later on. Your mileage may very… many people do not like the bulk or size of a vivi nova, and it took me a couple of days to get used to it. I did find however that I enjoy more of an airy vape, meaning, I like more air flow than a lot of people and the vivi nova is a bit lacking in that department. However, I haven’t found a better tank atomizer yet, so it is my go to guy for leaving the house.

When at home, I do put on my corsair dripping atomizer though, because I really enjoy the higher air flow it has. Now, with micro coils, it is really doing an awesome job for me too. I mean a lot of good vapor and flavor. But for you, you may enjoy the smaller clearomizers that go with your ego batteries. No problem there. It is all about what works best for you.

If you are curious though, and want a lot more information, or have specific questions you want answered, and do not have a vapers store in your area, where do you go? That is simple. You have the whole world at your finger tips. Just hop on the web and crawl over to a good forum and read away, and ask your questions. Please make sure to use the search feature first though, or people may hop in and bad mouth you for not taking the time to look something up that has been asked ever and over. It is not nice, but some people just are that way…

The best forum I have found to date is the main electronic cigarette forum at http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/ There you will find information on literally everything you could ever think to ask, and a whole lot more. I have been to other ecig forums and have found many to have rude posters and not to my liking at all. This one has so much more information than any of the others I have found also, so it works out well. I actually read this forum for about a year before I wanted to make a post, so then I finally signed up.

The great thing about it, is I think this may be one of the first forums that was built for electronic cigarette users, and therefore it is one of, if not the largest one out there. Tons and tons of great information just waiting to be had. Go have a look and continue your journey of vaping, to find your most satisfying vape.

Today I am set off by something strange. I am writing this review of graham cracker flavor, by flavor west, for DIY e-liquids. I bought this graham cracker flavor to be used for a crust flavoring, added to things like cheesecake, or other flavors with cheesecake. I am a bit more than surprised that it is pretty good all by itself too. I am almost at a loss for words, but I will do what I can for you.

The batch is made up at 30/70 pg/vg . I used 15% flavor in my 10 mil batch. I know most people make 5 or less mils of liquid when testing, but I plan to use this with other flavors so I needed a good sized test batch. However, since I give the flavor percentage used, you can make your batch how ever you like, with what ever PG/VG ratio that works for you. Just use an e liquid calculator and let it do the math for you.

When you first take a puff of this graham cracker flavor, it goes in pretty smooth, yet it has a full robust flavor at 15%. On the inhale and exhale, you taste the graham cracker flavor and nothing else. Then after vaping on it for a few, I am noticing perhaps a touch of a coconut flavor lingering around? I am still trying to place my finger on it, but that is what it seems. Almost like one of those girl scout cookies… um,, snickerdoodle I think it is. Maybe I am wrong about the name, but it has a coconut like flavor to it.

Anyways, alone, this is a nice vape. I am quite surprised by that, as I did not buy it for a stand alone flavor. The more I vape it, I am not sure if it is just the after taste or not, that is making me feel like I am tasting coconut, but It is really coming off as a nice flavorful vape. It has a lot of vapor, and an extremely mild throat hit even at 18 mg nicotine. Usually I go a lot lower, but I changed a lot of things up for this batch of flavors, and the nic level was one of them.

If you like graham crackers, and coconut, this is a nice one for you. It plays very well with flavors of things that typically use a graham cracker crust on them like the blueberry cheesecake flavor I made up. You will have to play with the flavor ratios yourself, but my first try, I went 5 drops blueberry, 5 drops cheese cake, and 3 drops graham cracker, and it was pretty decent. Not perfect, but decent for sure. It was a good starting point anyways.

So, my over all review of this graham cracker flavor, by flavor west, is good. It is a keeper, and one you should definitely give a try.

This evening, I am trying out some of my flavors I mixed up yesterday from Flavor West. I will review each one, as well as some combinations that have worked real nicely. Most of these flavors, I planned to blend with others to start off, but testing to get the original flavor recipe is an important first step. So, this is my review on the banana flavor, by flavor west.

I mixed this batch of banana flavor at 30 percent PG, and 70 percent VG. I mixed this batch up at 15% flavoring to begin with so I would have a good starting reference point. It seems that most non tobacco flavors from Flavor west are in the 10 to 20 percent area when you are into making your own DIY eliquids. This banana is pretty good at 15 percent. Not too strong, but not what I would call weak, but it has only steeped over night, so no real steeping time yet. It may finish out much stronger, or smoother, or change all together.

The banana flavor to me tastes a lot like banana laffy taffy. If you are not sure what that is,,, it is like a banana syrup flavor that some places that do no know any better, try to put into their shakes and malts, instead of using the real thing. Idiots… Same goes for the fools that use malt syrup instead of powdered malt, but I will try to stay on topic with the banana flavoring, by flavor west, since that is what this review is about.

I am vaping it at 3.5 volts, and the flavor is pretty pronounced, but not over bearing at all. It is kinda mild, which I expect it to be right now, since it has so much VG, and it was just made yesterday. I will check it again in a week and a month to see how it progresses over time.

So far though, the 15 percent seems to be a good starting point and the banana flavor is coming through just fine. It is a banana candy flavor though, so keep that in mind when looking for a good banana flavor. To mix in other things, you may want to use a more natural tasting banana, which I have not found yet. However, this is a pretty darn good banana candy type flavoring.

Mixing with chocolate, that I made at the same time, it has a great chocolate / banana flavor to it, but it is a bit on the mild side. I will love to see how it goes in a week or two when this stuff steeps out better. I will hold off on making the review until this stuff steeps for at least a week, so I can get the formula correct for the blog post. If you like chocolate and banana, you will clearly like this.

Oh, for the recipe, I did add 2 percent of distilled water to help thin the VG. I think it should have been 4 or 5% though, but it could be just me. I think this stuff is pretty thick, and I know it wouldn’t wick for a carto or clearomizer. I am testing it using a dripping atomizer, so keep that in mind. You will need it a lot thinner to go into a carto or clearo. I generally make those batches at 50/50 and it works great in both.

Do I think you should try the banana flavor by flavor west? Yes. It is a pretty decent banana flavor, and it hasn’t even had time to steep yet. My review should hopefully get better when it does steep in more of the flavor. Stay tuned.

The first of my new flavors up for a test on it’s own, is the chocolate, just since it is sitting closer to the keyboard and the first one I saw was chocolate. This is a DIY flavor by flavor west. I mixed this up yesterday, and got impatient, so please excuse the lack of steeping time. I will revisit these posts next week, and next month about this time for another review of the flavor once it has had sufficient time to steep. This is the almost right out of the bottle flavor review of the chocolate, by flavor west, first.

Alone, and with a new wick, at 3.5 volts, in my corsair atomizer. I have turned the air holes to find the best place to taste this flavor. The chocolate flavor was mixed at the following: 30 pg/70 vg, with 15 percent flavor. The flavor is a very delicate milk chocolate. For those that have tasted something like the Dove milk chocolate, I think this comes real close. It is a light chocolate flavor, but it is very tasty if you are a fine milk chocolate lover. It is not very rich, but is sufficiently sweet, without any hint of being too sweet.

I turned up the voltage to 3.8 and the flavor definitely popped a bit better. It seems like a dry flavor though, and I thought with more vg than I am used to, it would not be so dry tasting. I turned it back down to 3.6 and it seems better. Still light and milky, but not a creamy flavor in it that I notice. It is definitely a milk chocolate. Like a Dove

I can’t wait for this to steep more and see how it turns out with more time. I know VG does not carry the flavor as well as PG, so it may take more steeping time than I am used to. Time will tell, but so far it is looking pretty good.

I will be reviewing each flavor on it’s own, but I started to test the blue berry, and with me going with a 30/70 vg/pg blend, it did not carry the flavor well with just one day to steep. So, I had to bump the flavor of the blueberry up to 20% from 15%, and thinned it to 40/60 with adding more PG to hopefully bring out more flavor sooner. Worked okay, but still needs to steep for some time. I will retest next week and see how things go with it on it’s own.

However…

My wife walked in, and saw that I mixed up the following flavors yesterday;

Blue Berry

Cheese Cake

Graham Cracker

Banana

Chocolate

Cherry Balsom ( I think this is supposed to be blossom, but they didn’t write it that way on the bottle)

So, with those flavors on her mind, and the blue berry in the atty already, she was like,,, make up some blueberry cheesecake. So, I put some cheese cake on the wick, along with a touch of the graham cracker for the crust, and added more of the blueberry, after I remixed it with 5 percent more flavor and 10 percent more pg.

At first I thought, there is no way this will work just winging it like this. Then I took a nice long puff, and WOW, was I wrong. It was a dead ringer. Just a lucky shot in the dark for sure. I will play hell trying to make up this recipe so I can duplicate it in large batches. You just watch and see…

Another mix I added into the atty was banana, blueberry and cheese cake. No crust. It was pretty decent. I think the crust (graham cracker) leaves an after taste in my mouth, but I am not sure about that, since I have not tested it on it’s own yet. The banana really stands out, and it is also made at 30 pg and 70 vg. I was just trying that blend to see if I get more vapor. I think I need to add a bit more distilled water to thin it more, as it is very thick this way with only 2% water added in. But very tasty. Again, I can’t wait to review it on it’s own.

Next test is the banana and chocolate. Please note, I haven’t tried the chocolate by itself, so this could fail… I like chocolate covered bananas, and love chocolate/banana malts, so I have my fingers crossed that this is a good chocolate. Here goes. About 50/50 on the flavors combined, again, right on the atty. Oh man,, the chocolate and banana mixed is pretty nice. Still has a touch of the blueberry in it though, so I need to change out the wick and get these separate reviews under way.

I just couldn’t wait to mention the blueberry cheesecake made up in the atty. It was such a lucky fluke that she walked in when she did and said to give it a try. I wouldn’t have tried that before testing each flavor on it’s own, first. Now to find the correct recipe so I can put it in it’s review for you.

Stay tuned and vape something good while your waiting. I am just trying to finish vaping this wick dry before I change the wick out. I can’t wait to test the chocolate banana mix on its own without blueberry cheesecake trying to work it’s way into the blend.

Well, one thing I noticed, is that using a dripping atomizer out on the bass boat while fishing kinda sucks… But what could I do. I had my micro coil to vape on, and after I first tried that, my vivi nova just is not cutting it anymore. A sad day for sure, since dripping was always done by me sitting at home, watching TV, or at my desk. I always used my vivi nova tank for going out of the house. Now I am in a pickle, because Well,, I need to find a better method of getting my juice into my atty, and still being able to use a micro coil.

I looked at the REO site for the reo-grand and other models, but man, those are costly as all get out. No way I can spring for one of those right now, and the atty they sell looks awful sweet, but it too is no low dollar item. So, they delima of what to do next is pounding at my brain today. I have tried 4 different coils, and can’t seem to get my 32 gauge kanthol wire tight so the wire loops are touching all the way across.

I read more and found that at least one of the guys doing this, is heating his wire and getting the tighter micro coil so that all the wire loops touch all the way across. I may have to try that, just so I can give this new type of coil a try. This is producing so much more flavor and vapor, it is unreal. It is one of my better choices for coils lately for sure. The odd thing is, that I had always been told to not let the coil wires touch, because it creates a hot spot. I guess the idea of this is to make the whole coil a hot spot.

The cotton for a wick is also a great idea I had wanted to try before now, and I am real glad I did. The flavor is much, much better. You do have to use caution to not let you juice dry up on you though, because the cotton will burn right out of your coil. Then you try to vape and get nothing but a burnt harsh smoke… ugh. It is not good. So, the first hint of the wick drying, make sure you add more e liquid to your atty, or you will wish you did in the next puff or two.

So, while I am pondering what to do, since I don’t have about $200 to set up with my reo grand, I will drip and ponder… LOL They do have a pretty nice selection, and I have not checked out all the different models, but they are all USA made, and look like they are very high quality. But it would be great if I could find a nice knock off to give it a try for a while before I splurge on that pricy equipment.

So, I guess my search will start this evening, looking for something like it, or coming up with a way to build something similar myself. For these micro coils though, it has to be a good safe device, that will run less than 1 ohm coils. Also, it needs to have a way to deliver more juice without dripping. So far, tanks just aren’t cutting it anymore, and that kinda sucks, because I love my vivi novas until I tried this.

Building micro coils can produce major clouds of vapor with your ecig. I have been doing a lot of reading on the e-cigarette forum. I stumbled across one thread about micro coils, and it had some cool information in it about how to make much better working coils for rebuildable atomizers. It was chocked full of great pictures for examples of what they were all doing, and very good talk on how to do it. So, without waiting, I gave it a shot, because I enjoy playing around with my rebuildable and it already had better vapor and flavor than my vivi nova tank has. Better air flow too, which is why I bought it in the first place.

So, with my first attempt, I made an 10 wrap coil. You should be able to see it in the article image, but I will post a picture of it here as well:

This is the first attempt at a micro coil – works great though not a perfect wrap.

That wick is cotton, from a pure, unbleached cotton ball. The pure and unbleached are two very important parts… Don’t screw it up if your going to try cotton for a wick. Look for Organic cotton balls at CVS or Walgreens. Sometimes in the cosmetic area and sometimes they are in the pharmacy area. But I notice with the cotton wick, that it tastes a lot better.

Using this coil as it is, is working out pretty good. Note, this was my first attempt, and will be a work in progress until I perfect it and am able to replicate the perfected version over and over. The idea is to get all the loops in the coil touching… you see how mine are spread out, and there is a gap between every loop. That defeats the idea of the micro coil, although it is working pretty well.

This set up is using as I mentioned, cotton for the wick, 32 gauge kanthol wire, and 10 wraps, that comes to only .75 to .80 ohms. That is very low resistance, so you can’t fire it up at over 4 volts. I have been testing this out between 3.6 and 4 volts, and it is awesome good flavor and much more vapor than I was getting with my regular 3 wrap coil at about 1 ohm.

If you want to read what everyone else is doing in that thread, I must warn you that it is over 200 pages of replies… and it was only started back in May. At the time of this writing, there are 214 pages, and 2132 posts. It is an all day, and some of the next day, read. Long thread, but a really good one.

I hope to post back to this with a perfect wrapped micro coil once I am able to make it like I am trying to, but getting those wires right up next to each other is a lot harder than it seems like it should be. I put my wire around a carpet or upholstery needle, and wrap, then try pushing it together. No worries though, I have plenty of time to get it right, and I can’t wait to see how much better it vapes than the one I have right now. Because this one is much better than any I have used before, by a long ways. I mean, talk about huge vapor,,, this definitely makes huge vapor as it is right now, and it is supposed to be much better when the coil wraps are touching. I can’t wait to see for myself!

Thank you for stopping by, and I hope my blog posts are helping all of you.

Electronic cigarette safety is another thing you will want to keep in mind when you fist start vaping. Especially if you have small children in your house. The e-liquid, or smoke juice, may have nicotine in it, if you are like most of us that are moving from cigs to e-cigs. After a while, you may start phasing out the nicotine by getting lower and lower amounts in your favorite e liquids. However, something to remember, is that even a small amount ingested by a small child can be very harmful, and even fatal.

If a toddler eats one cigarette, it can seriously harm them. A bottle of e-liquid contains a carton or more worth of nicotine in that small amount of liquid. Keep this in mind, and have a good safe place to keep your electronic cigarette supplies out of the reach of small children for their own safety. Little kids are curious, and will climb up things to get to something colorful that they see up high, so it is a good idea to keep them in some kind of storage box, so they are more out of sight.

Also, if you have a spill, and it gets on your skin, it can soak in and make you feel very ill. You need to wash any skin with soap and water to keep it from soaking in too much, as soon as a spill happens. Do not just wipe it off with a towel, or paper towel, because that will just make it spread over a larger area of your skin, and allow more to be absorbed before you get it washed off. Keep this in mind for personal safety, as well as the safety of others, including your children and even pets.

When I am filling up my e cig with smoke juice, I normally keep everything over a small cookie sheet I bought just for this. It keeps any spilled fluids contained, and I can easily wash it off when I am done if I happen to make a bit of a mess. You should always have a couple of paper towels on hand as well, just to keep your e-cig cleaned off when your done, and many people use them when they are opening the parts that hold the liquids, so they do not get it on their fingers.

If you get it in your eyes… It will freakin burn like fire! Get to the kitchen sink and run cool water in your eye(s) for at least 5 minutes. Longer if needed for sure. I have never had it happen to me, but have read about it happening to someone else, and he was in pain for quite a while. I would even suggest getting medical help after rinsing your eyes, just to be on the safe side. But that may depend if the burning stopped or kept going too. I can’t really say for sure, but if it hurts and it is in your eyes, it would be the smart thing to do.

I am sure there are some flavors out there, that contain real berry flavor extracts, and such, that may easily stain your cloths too, if you spill it on them, so use care, and you should be fine. I know I have spilled a couple of drops here and there on my shirt, or pants, and have not noticed a stain, but every flavor can be different. Again, just use your head, and you shouldn’t have any issues to worry about.

Okay, that was the bad stuff. Now the good side of things. If you are going from regular tobacco cigarettes to electronic cigarettes, you will no longer have to worry about your paint in your house becoming yellowed over time from the nicotine in the smoke. There is no smoke, just water vapors that dissipate pretty fast. You will notice that your house will start smelling cleaner, and your cloths will not smell like what your smoking. You can walk up to non smokers right after taking a few hits off your e cig, and they will not smell it all over you. The safety part of it, is that the vapor you breath out has almost nothing left in it for others to breath in. Some will have a lingering smell, depending on the flavor, but many have no smell left at all in the vapor that you blow out. Second had vaping does not look like an issue with the research that I have read, that was done by notable research facilities.

I hope you find this information helpful about electronic cigarette safety.

My wife and I were talking tonight after dinner, and she mentioned something that I should write about for beginners. After she said it, it was like a no brain-er, and I am trying to figure out why it wasn’t one of my first blog posts… But there is something important you should understand about going from smoking a pack or two a day, to vaping. Especially when you test your first e-cig out at a vaping store. Even more so, if you have a smokers cough or other breathing issues.

The first time you go into a vapors store to check out electric cigarettes, and test some flavors to see which one you want to start with, your going to come up to a small stumbling block if you are like most of us. You walk up to the counter, they hand you some sampler e-cig, and you pick a flavor to test out,,, then you take a big deep drag on it, and wallah… your choking your head off. Don’t worry, it is completely normal at first. It is a different thing you are taking into your lungs, and they are not used to it. It takes a few more puffs (smaller ones) and you should be fine.

My wife was the first of us to take a trial drag at the flea market shop, then me. She did not choke up like I did at all. But, I have to use an inhaler a lot due to industrial lung issues from being around a boat yard that sanded bottom paint off of the boats, and I have a lot of copper dust in my lungs that will not come out. On top of that, I was smoking a pack and a half to two packs a day. Dhu…

Okay, so I knew I needed to get off of the cigarettes and I would breath a lot better. Quitting just wasn’t working. I tried patches, gums, lozenges, and even paid a couple hundred bucks once for a hypnotist. Yeah, nothing worked for me or my wife. Over the years, we tried everything on the market, including going to smoking cessation classes at a hospital (twice), and we still smoked. However, these electronic cigarettes that I heard of many years before, but could never find, sounded like the ticket I needed to get away from cigarettes for good.

So far it is working very well for me. It only took a day to say I was not going to smoke any more. We took our cigarettes and tossed the last of them, and woke up the next day with nothing but our ego kits and started vaping. My cough went away that day, and I use my inhaler about 1/10th as much as I used to. I can breath a lot better now, and one of these days, I will completely move away from the nicotine.

My wife on the other hand, just hasn’t found what will work for her yet. She keeps breaking down and buying cigarettes every month or two, and then quits again. She just needs to sample more flavors and find one that does not hurt her throat. Once she does, I am sure she will get completely off of regular (analog) cigs too. Yes, I have smokes a few when she has them, but I clearly prefer my e-cigs over a real cig now days, and have no problem with not buying them at all.

I am not saying that these will for sure be the ticket for you to quit smoking. What I am saying, is that if you really want to get off of regular cigarettes, but can’t break the habit, this may be the best alternative for you too. If you break down and buy real cigarettes again, just smoke some, then go back to the e-cigs, and keep at it. It is clearly harder for some to quit than others, but if you keep at it, eventually you may win. You have the right to try, and these are clearly safer, with over 4000 less chemicals than a standard cigarette has.

If it is your time to check out electronic cigarettes, then give it a try and see how you like it. If you do like it, spend the money to get what works best for you, so you can work away from, or stop smoking completely. It is not a smoking cessation plan that is approved by the government yet, but it seems to have better success rates than anything else on the market, from the research and studies I have read. At it’s worst, it is a better, healthier, or at least safer alternative to smoking actual cigarettes.

Good luck and keep up with my blog, as I will be putting all kinds of tips and reviews on this site. I hope to start making some videos some time soon too. We will see how that goes… I am not sure how good my camera is.

If you are like most people, when you first started vaping, you would start off with maybe some of those cheap gas station e-cigs, then later moved to something that has a bigger battery so you could vape longer without having to recharge it. Once you move to a ego type or some other battery mod, you will probably find yourself wanting more eliquid in your electronic cigarette, so you do not have to top it off every few hours, or so.

That is when you may want to start looking at the larger tank systems. Now is the time you should check out the vivi-nova tank. If you do not like how large it is, there is also a vivi-nova mini. However, you will love the vivi nova if you give it a chance. I did, and love it. It holds about a days worth of smoke juice, and you can vape all day and not need to refill it. That is great.

The vivi-nova is also very easy to fill compared to a lot of the other tanks out there. It hardly ever leaks, and when it does, it is likely because the atomizer untwisted a bit when you took the lid off to fill it. Simply open it back up, tighten the atomizer and your set. I have only had that happen once or twice in the last 6 months. So it does not happen often. And this is about the only tank that I have ever used that does not flood and gurgle.

The do have a plastic tube for the main tank body, so using pure VG e-liquids, or spicy things like cinnamon are not recommended, because they will fog the tank and melt it over time. You don’t want that… but a 50/50 blend or even a 40 pg/60 vg, should be okay to use.

You can get them with just the clear plastic tube, or you can get a metal cover that goes over it, in many different colors. I have blue, and purple, but found that I prefer using it without it so I can see my juice level. Go figure… I spent an extra buck or two for that cover and they just sit on my desk. Your mileage may very with that though. I do see a lot of other people that do use the colored covers. If they had the gold in stock, I would have likely got that. There are a lot of colors to choose from.

As for the atomizer, it is super easy to change out. You get the 2.4 ohm one installed when you open the box, and have a 2.8 and a 1.8 ohm to use also. When it begins to clog, if you use darker liquids, or if it begins to have some leakage, it is likely time to change the atomizer out. I get a week or two out of mine easily. Many times I get 3 or 4 weeks. It really depends on how hot you vape (voltage) and if you use a thicker dark juice. The darker ones seem to leave a residue that builds up on the coil, and eventually blocks the air flow, and does not vape as well.

To change the coil, you just vape all the e liquid out, or suck it out with a syringe, then unscrew the the tank body, then unscrew the top of the atomizer from the post in the middle. Put a new one on, and tighten it good, then put your body back on, then fill with your favorite smoke juice, and put the top back on, and your back to vaping in just minutes. I usually buy 3 to 6 coils at a time. Some places give discounts for orders of 10 or more, but I have not done that yet – just saying, there are deals out there that help with costs, if you look for them.

A definite must have for your arsenal though. You will be glad you invested the $13 to 15 bucks. It is well worth it. It is a lot more economical than spending 3 bucks or so per clearomizer when they only last a few days to a week at most. The replacement coils for the vivi nova tank is less than $2 each.

Almost all vaping stores carry them so they are pretty easy to find too.